It is that time of year. Yosemite National Park, CA announced yesterday that Tioga Road/Highway 120 through the park will temporarily close on Thursday, October 7, at 5 pm due to snow in the forecast at higher elevations.
The Park will monitor conditions before reopening the road in a few days.
Based on the current @NWSHanford forecast, we are planning to *temporarily* close Tioga Road (the continuation of Highway 120 through the park) on Thursday, October 7, at 5 pm. We will evaluate conditions over the weekend and open the road as soon as it’s safe. pic.twitter.com/ywYHM4HIK7
— Yosemite National Park (@YosemiteNPS) October 6, 2021
The National Weather Service Forecast currently calls for a 40% chance of snow at the higher elevations including Tioga Pass starting Thursday afternoon with the probability of rising Friday and Saturday. Currently, Yosemite Valley at a lower elevation will not see snow.
Call 209/372-0200 (then 1, 1) for current status.
Tioga Road closes due to snow, usually from sometime in November through late May or early June. The road closure extends from the Tuolumne Grove, just east of Crane Flat, to Tioga Pass Entrance Station. (Highway 120, the continuation of the Tioga Road outside the park, is often closed in winter from Tioga Pass to five miles west of Lee Vining.) When Tioga Road is closed, it is not possible to drive to Tuolumne Meadows or enter Yosemite National Park from the east. All other park entrances, including those along Highway 120 from the west, Hetch Hetchy, Highway 140, and Highway 41, remain open all year.
Wheezus, once you figure out how to get the Western World and then China/India to stop using fossils fuels you will have solved part the problem. By that time we’re going to need legitimate carbon sequester operations at scale to clean up the mess.
Good luck on both fronts. Its going to take you the next 50-80 years to hit your goals. You’re going to have some rainy winters waiting for the world to get its act together.
Building at higher elevations is a temporary solution at best.
I like your Olympic loophole/idea. Someone should give it a go.
There are community run ski resorts throughout the US. They are typically small and often poorly run but there is a model to make ski resorts not for profit. Sky Tavern near Mt. Rose is owned an operated as a not for profit community park by the City of Reno. I think similar scaled up not for profit ski areas would be the ideal model to benefit the general public and everyday citizen.
Also you could entitle the land development-free so you wouldn’t have the Vail Village, let’s go build a water park phenomenon.
To be frank I just want something new. Tahoe is getting corporate blow out and in 10 years its going to mostly rain. I snowmobile places that are higher and have better terrain than squaw + alpine + kirkwood combined.
The Sierra’s have the terrain to out-altitude Colorado. Its just all perma-locked by perma-red tape. It wasn’t always like that and it doesn’t always have to be like that. Its going to be a bummer in 10-20 years to be in Tahoe and it rains while there are places further south in the Sierra’s up at 10,000′ – 14,000′ with 30′ snowpacks perma-closed by red-tape.
Cool. I feel ya. Times change and we aren’t going back to the ski resort boom. New development on federal lands now takes a decade of studies and planning. Even if it happens, by the time construction starts the costs have increased substantially. New resorts aren’t feasible so existing resorts EXPAND because the process is faster and less expensive. Small resorts get bought out by large corporations so they have the capital to proceed with those expansions or just do simple repairs. Big resorts like Vail and Breck put in new chairlifts and lodging easily as they have the local government convinced that tourism is their only means of survival.
Again by developing on private land the government red tape is diminished but not removed. I work on infrastructure for both public and private clients. The processes for both are longer than ever. A certain political party reduced the environmental review with a strategy of simply gutting quality employees so the process had to be reduced allowing developers to see profits sooner. Another political party is incorporating climate change into the review process but continues to use corporations and their expensive employees to drag out the process.
No matter what, the rich get richer and the banks get more and more powerful. America is the land of red tape and fat cats. Complaining about the past and how development used to be easier is like yelling at clouds. Modern America means more corporations want a piece of the pie and want their minimum wage slaves back to work. Developing a ski area isn’t of interest to most Americans, they want amenities closer to home not something they have to drive in traffic during a snowstorm to get to.
As far as I can tell the best way to get a new ski area quickly developed on public land is to host the winter Olympics. LOL
If we had more people talking about it and more public support you could get them done. Are you aware most ski areas we use nowadays were land grants by the feds? Just 60 years ago the feds gave away land to encourage people to go start businesses and build ski resorts. You’re making my point you need billionaires to make new American ski resorts. That’s not how it was a generation ago. And that is not how it currently is in Europe. America is the land of red tape.
I’m not a climate change denier. I can see the difference in the snow levels in my lifetime. I can see my boat in Tahoe now has algae growing on it and every year it gets worse. I remember as a child when no algae grew in the lake period. I’m very aware its real. I just don’t think you’re going to fix it anytime soon with China and India building coal plants left and right.
oh EE I’m sure a lot of billionaires and companies share your amazing idea! Doing in California? Doesn’t seem like it but if you network well you can hook up with them. We’ve had a few open recently in Montana and Colorado…on private land. So yeah since you are getting rich and buying that helicopter you should consider buying some land so you can build that private ski area.
Funny how a little snow gets the climate change deniers all excited!!! Just like the clown who brought the snowball into Congress. Its people who can’t see the big picture very well or believe in some old guy in the heavens looking down. They don’t want to open their mind to actual science.
Will someone send this article to Colin M to highlight my idea of why it would be sweet to have ski resorts in California with a base at 10,000′ and a top mountain at 13,000′ +?
See Colin, skiing can survive global warming if we could open new ski resorts at higher elevations.
One might ask, what is preventing new ski resorts from being opened at higher elevations?
mmmnnn Colin mnnn lets think about this one.